Being more of a right-brainer than a left-brainer, I intuitively know the exact steeping time for all teas. So I usually oversteep, sometimes very badly. But I will not concede defeat and use any sort of timer.

Time is only one thing i watch more often than not. Especially when less than a minute infusions are necessary.

Today i've tried sonogicha, basically it's tamaryokucha that was produced from tea grown in Nagayo, small city near Nagasaki. Quite interesting how different flavor profile was from Ureshino tamaryokucha, same processing method yet so different taste and smell of leaves. Less grassy and less subtle, not astringent or bitter. Tried only once, tomorrow will give it another go. Heh, need to train my taste description skills

Trey Winston wrote:Being more of a right-brainer than a left-brainer, I intuitively know the exact steeping time for all teas. So I usually oversteep, sometimes very badly. But I will not concede defeat and use any sort of timer.

I guess that makes me an ultra left brainer.

I set the timer to count-up for most teas and for all Japanese teas, hit it once and watch it for the first steep mostly. Successive steeps I am pretty oblivious to it.

As I have mentioned before, I like to use the count-up versus timer so there is no bleeping beeping and I just hit it once ... then can pretty much forget about it.

Began the TD with Miyabi shincha with the Mrs., timed first steep of 75 seconds for this chumushi. Came our perfect!

Today, not timing directly the later infusions of a Dan Cong (Kan Tou) from teaHabitat. I did pay attention, mostly, to minutes but at a less than 'counting seconds' and more of a 'been a minute or three' level.

I guess I go by "feel"...? I don't own a timer, although I am mindful of the clock when brewing teas, like I'll brew some teas for about a minute, others for around 5 minutes (I love insanely strong pu-erh ), others for around 30 seconds.

Pu-erh this morning; drank a ton of iced green tea because I was running around all day; currently boiling water for a rosemary tisane. (Nom nom nom! )

If it's a tea I've become accustomed to, I just pour water in and pour water out when I'm ready to drink or when the tea calls to me. I guess you can kind of call that intuition, huh? Sometimes I walk away from the table, forget about it and don't come back for an hour but that's usually when I've had enough of the tea anyway. But I still drink the last steep. :p

Today, I think I shall brew some matcha. It's taken me forever to get through that lil 25g tin.